• Title/Summary/Keyword: Scientific Literacy

Search Result 167, Processing Time 0.055 seconds

Analyzing Opinions Which University Students from Engineering and Social Science Department have about Science-Technology-Society Literacy (공학 및 사회 계열 대학생들의 STS 소양에 대한 견해 분석)

  • Lee, Yong-Kil;Kang, Kyung-Hee
    • Journal of Engineering Education Research
    • /
    • v.13 no.4
    • /
    • pp.43-50
    • /
    • 2010
  • The purpose of this study is to analyze university students' views on STS(science-technology-society) literacy. We divided definition and interaction of science, technology and society in the views' category about STS literacy. Research object was three universities' students(engineering department: 119 and social science department: 117) in Seoul and Jeju. Research result was following. First, students from engineering department valued convenience of life in the definition of science and technology. Students from social science department valued explanation of phenomenon and experiment in the definition of science and technology. Second, two groups perceived inter-relationship of science, technology and society. Third, two groups had different opinions about responsibility and ethics of scientific technician and technical use. As a result of this study, students perceived highly about STS literacy. Therefore, the result of this study will provide important implication for establishing and operating subjects about STS literacy in university curriculum.

  • PDF

The Development of an Online Scientific Inquiry Learning System (온라인 과학 탐구 학습체제의 개발)

  • Lee, Bong-Woo;Son, Jeong-Woo;Jeong, Hyun-Chul
    • Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
    • /
    • v.25 no.3
    • /
    • pp.271-280
    • /
    • 2006
  • In this paper, an Online Scientific Inquiry Learning System was developed with the aim of improving student's scientific literacy and scientific inquiry ability. It was determined that there should be 4 distinct principles applicable to the design of the Learning system. First, it should enrich learner's motivation. Second, it should provide students with the chance for reflecting on the inquiry process. Third, it should emphasize multi-dimensional forms of interaction. Fourth, students should be able to create new information through it. The server system including the database, equation editor, reporting tool, search engine were all utilized for developing the learning system. In addition, the authors produced 24 web-based projects which were guided inquiry activities in which various inquiry abilities (reasoning, prediction, experiment design) could be developed. An Online Scientific Inquiry Learning System is not the only program which could be utilized in improving scientific inquiry abilities, but at the very least, such a system can serve as the prototype for developing an online learning system.

  • PDF

Claim-Evidence Approach for the Opportunity of Scientific Argumentation

  • Park, Young-Shin
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
    • /
    • v.26 no.5
    • /
    • pp.620-636
    • /
    • 2006
  • The purpose of this study was to analyze one science teacher's understanding of student argumentation and his explicit teaching strategies for implementing it in the classroom. One middle school science teacher, Mr. Field, and his students of 54 participated in this study. Data were collected through three semi-structured interviews, 60 hours of classroom observations, and two times of students' lab reports for eight weeks. Coding categories were developed describing the teacher's understanding of scientific argumentation and a description of the main teaching strategy, the Claim-Evidence Approach, was introduced. Toulmin's approach was employed to analyze student discourse as responses to see how much of this discourse was argumentative. The results indicated that Mr. Field defined scientific inquiry as the abilities of procedural skills through experimentation and of reasoning skills through argumentation. The Claim-Evidence Approach provided students with opportunities to develop their own claims based on their readings, design the investigation for evidence, and differentiate pieces of evidence from data to support their claims and refute others. During this approach, the teacher's role of scaffolding was critical to shift students' less extensive argumentation to more extensive argumentation through his prompts and questions. The different level of teacher's involvement, his explicit teaching strategy, and the students' scientific knowledge influenced the students' ability to develop and improve argumentation.

Analysis of Scientific Inquiry Activities in the Astronomy Section of School Science Textbooks (과학 교과서 천문 단원의 탐구 활동 분석)

  • Kim, Kyoung-Mi;Park, Young-Shin;Choe, Seung-Urn
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
    • /
    • v.29 no.2
    • /
    • pp.204-217
    • /
    • 2008
  • This study analyzed the inquiry activities appearing in the astronomy sections of elementary, middle and highschool level science textbooks according to the five essential features of inquiry in the classroom as proposed by the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000), and SAPA (Science-A Process Approach). On the basis of this analysis, it is clear that the science textbook inquiry activities released the limitation to meet the goal of science education, namely scientific literacy, as it has been laid out by the 7th Science Educational Curriculum. This study revealed that the features of scientific inquiry which are most frequently used in the astronomy sections of science textbooks are 'data collection' and 'form explanation', whereas the features of 'oriented-question', 'evaluate explanations' and 'communicate and justify' rarely appeared. The analysis of inquiry activities by SAPA showed that the basic inquiry skills of 'observing', 'communicating' and 'manipulating materials' were used with increasing frequency according to grade level, and the integrated skills of 'investigating', 'creating models', 'interpreting data' and 'experimenting' were more emphasized in the textbooks. Therefore, it is suggested that students be provided with more opportunities to experience all the features of scientific inquiry and scientific processes as envisioned by the 7th Science Educational Curriculum in order to achieve the stated goal of scientific literacy. Science educators should be required to develop new lesson modules which will allow students to experience authentic scientific inquiry. It is crucial for science teachers to reflect upon and develop their understanding and teaching strategies regarding scientific inquiry through professional development programs in teacher education.

Philosophical Views on Science of Major Science Curriculum Documents in USA

  • Jang, Myoung-Duk
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
    • /
    • v.23 no.4
    • /
    • pp.401-418
    • /
    • 2003
  • The purpose of this study was to examine philosophical views on science of two influential curriculum documents, AAAS' s Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy (Benchmark) and NRC's National Science Education Standards (Standard), and to get educational implications about a desired philosophical view on science at a school science level. In order to determine the philosophical views on science explicitly suggested in the documents, Soh's Philosophical Perspectives Probe (PPP) was used as a framework for analysis. Forty preservice teachers reviewed the documents, extracting paragraphs with which statements of the PPP' s questions would agree. The results of the study were as follows: First, the Benchmark's philosophical view on science corresponds to the borderline between inductivism and eclecticism, or eclecticism close to falsificationism. The philosophical positions by the PPP' s themes are very different. Second, the Standard's philosophical position on science corresponds to inductivism close to eclecticism. Its philosophical position by the themes of the PPP is very different like the Benchmark. These results indicate that philosophical positions of the documents are more complex than popular conceptions would have it. That is to say, the results suggest that the science curriculum documents hold not only a contemporary philosophical view on science but also a traditional view on science, and that the philosophical positions on science are different from each other by documents and even by the PPP's themes in the same document. The results suggest that the philosophical views on science in school science contexts need to be adjusted and presented to K-12 students according to topics related to philosophy of science.

The effect of mock Kyoto Protocol class which uses role-playing and discussion in middle school gifted class on student's global scientific literacy (역할극과 토론을 통한 모의 교토의정서 수업이 중학교 영재학급 학생들의 지구적 소양에 미치는 영향)

  • Kang, Ji-Won;Han, Shin
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
    • /
    • v.3 no.3
    • /
    • pp.228-238
    • /
    • 2010
  • The purpose of this study is to examine the effects which applies teaching program that search solution to prevent global warming in middle school gifted class. This program of total 10 class was theoretical and experimental class and the students presented after collecting the synthetic data about climate-change and roleplayed what they debated to firm their country's opinion about Kyoto Protocol. Finally, students as policymaker made mock Kyoto Protocol by discussion. Impression papers and images about climate-changes was made by students in last class. In discussion of making up mock Kyoto Protocol, developed and developing nations had an argument about carbon dioxide emissions because of their economic benefits. In the course of allocating mutual $CO_2$ reduction, they needed yield and negotiation among nations. Although they mainly took passive position about $CO_2$ reduction, atmosphere that all the country make greater effort for the future global environment was formed. Like this, students had more concepts over climate change by making mock Kyoto Protocol. And they could equipped global scientific literacy and responsibility by participating in social decision making process of solving global environmental issues.

  • PDF

Cyber In-Service Training Contents Development Regarding Environmental Literacy for Entry-Level Environmental Public Servants (신임환경공무원을 위한 환경소양 사이버 연수 콘텐츠 개발)

  • Seo, Woo-Seok;Kim, Su-Wook;Kim, Jae-Ho;Lee, Yoon-Jo
    • Hwankyungkyoyuk
    • /
    • v.21 no.2
    • /
    • pp.25-39
    • /
    • 2008
  • The purpose of the study was to develop cyber in-service training contents regarding environmental literacy for entry-level environmental public servants. The blended type of contents were developed, through literature review, contents analysis of other programs, and expert conferences. The validity of the contents developed was ensured experts in environment. Major research findings were as followings: First, there is a lack of time for entry-level environmental public servants to participate in the environmental in-service training programs. Therefore, cyber training can be a good solution to the problems with environmental training courses. It improves access to educational opportunities as it overcomes the limitations of time and space and provides hands-on experiences through multimedia materials that reflect the real world. Second, directions for developing cyber environmental education contents were represented in three parts; 1) strategies for developing cyber environmental education contents, 2) Models for developing cyber environmental education contents, 3) Contents selection for developing cyber environmental education contents Third, the developed contents for entry-level environmental officers consist of 4 domains: (1) the introduction to environment; (2) the natural scientific understanding of environment; (3) the humanistic understanding of environment; and (4) the social scientific understanding of environment. Fourth, the program developed was evaluated by 7 environmental education experts according to 10 evaluation items of total contents and contents development structure. In result, the validity of the program was ensured. Based on the results, some recommendations were suggested.

  • PDF

Middle School Students' Evaluation of Scientific Information: From the Perspective of Hypothetico-deductive Reasoning (가설-연역적 추론 관점에서 본 중학생의 과학적 정보 평가 양상)

  • Lee, Eun Mi;Kang, Nam-Hwa
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
    • /
    • v.34 no.4
    • /
    • pp.375-383
    • /
    • 2014
  • The purpose of this study is to find out how middle school students evaluate scientific information in terms of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. A total of 66 middle school students completed a paper-and-pencil test on scientific information evaluation and 14 of them were individually interviewed for triangulation. The test includes six topics related to scientific or pseudoscientific information, and questions about each topic were sequenced based on a hypothetico-deductive reasoning. The hypothetico-deductive process consists of three steps: identifying predictions made by explanations in the information, identifying data actually obtained, and determining the fit between predictions and data to judge the validity of the explanations. Data analyses have focused on students' response types at each step, whether students used hypoethetico-deductive reasoning, and students' preference to evidence types in making decisions. The middle school students in this study answered the questions in various ways based on how they used the information given or personal knowledge and beliefs. A small portion of students evaluated information based on hypothetico-deductive reasoning. These students tended to give priority to scientific data in determining the validity of the information. On the other hand, students who did not use hypoethetico-deductive reasoning tended to prefer first-hand experience in the decision. The results provide implications for science lessons and the curriculum for scientific literacy. Further research should include student evaluation of the validity of data and other types of reasoning.

A Possible Scientific Inquiry Model based on Hypothetico-Deduction Method Involving Abduction

  • Oh, Jun-Young
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
    • /
    • v.32 no.3
    • /
    • pp.486-501
    • /
    • 2012
  • The aims of this study are to investigate two main problems for the hypothetico-deduction method and to develop a scientific inquiry model to resolve these problems. The structure of this scientific inquiry model consists of accounts of the context of discovery and justification that the hypothetico-deduction holds as two main problems : 1) the heuristic flaw in the hypothetico-deduction method is that there is no limit to creating hypotheses to explain natural phenomena; 2) Logically, this brings into question affirming the consequent and modus tollens. The features of the model are as follows: first, the generation of hypotheses using an analogical abduction and the selection of hypotheses using consilience and simplicity; second, the expansion phase as resolution for the fallacy of affirming the consequent and the recycle phase as resolution for modus tollens involving auxiliary hypotheses. Finally, we examine the establishment process of Copernicus's Heliocentric Hypothesis and the main role of the history of science for the historical invalidity of this scientific inquiry model based on three examples of If/and/then type of explanation testing suggested by Lawson (International journal of science and Mathematics Education, 2005a, 3(1): 1-5) We claim that this hypotheticho-deduction process involving abduction approach produced favorable in scientific literacy rising for science teacher as well as students.

The Development of Science Culture Indicators for Socio-Scientific Issues: Focusing on Climate Change (과학관련 사회적 이슈에 대한 과학문화지표의 개발: '기후변화'를 중심으로)

  • Kim, Lee-Kyoung;Ha, Eun-Sun;Song, Jin-Woong
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
    • /
    • v.30 no.4
    • /
    • pp.472-486
    • /
    • 2010
  • The surveys for public awareness in relation to socio-scientific issues (SSI) have been limited to several topics such as public perception of risks about the issues and preference for some policies. To illuminate the public science culture literacy about SSI from a holistic perspective, this study aimed to develop an indicator system. For this purpose, the issue on climate change, which is currently one of the biggest issues worldwide, was adopted as a specific SSI and the framework centering on climate change was developed. Science culture literacy about SSI was defined as a lifestyle to identify SSI from various viewpoints and to cope with problems related to SSI appropriately. In the framework proposed, individual science culture indicators are divided into Potential and Activity area. The Potential consists of categories of Interest, Opinion and Understanding, whereas the Activity is composed of categories of Learning and Practice. To examine the reliability and validity of this framework statistically, the developed questionnaire was reviewed by science educators, environment experts and atmospheric scientists and was used to asked 777 secondary students. Based on the results of statistical analyses, the framework was modified and it consequently had 2 areas, 5 categories, 15 sub-categories, 34 indicators and 63 items. It is expected that the framework of science culture indicators for SSI could be used as a measurement tool for public awareness about various SSI topics.